Who are you

People can be annoying. It's a fact, but how can loving, well meaning people do this?  Sometimes I find myself feeling vaguely irritated with someone when there doesn't really seem to be a reason.

There are people who brush this off as projection. I am feeling that way and projecting it onto the situation, or person, at hand.

That may be true sometimes, but today I had one of those aha moments! I was redoing the bed. Not just changing the sheets, but completely changing the way I am going to sleep for a while. It occurred to me that people are always changing things, especially me.

I come from people who do the same things year after year after year; who even pride themselves on not changing, but they really do, whether they recognize it or not. Whether it is good or not good to change is irrelevant. It happens.

And that means you need to really pay attention to people when you are with them or you are basing your thoughts and perceptions of them on faulty cues. I find people fascinating. That is one of the reasons I like to spend one on one time with them. I am constantly reassessing, realizing new things about them, re-evaluating our relationship.  I may take it to the extreme, but for me it works.

Sometimes other people, thinking they "know" me do not do this and that is what irritates me. They think they know me. They assume things no longer valid. I am so used to this that it never occurred to me that this is the one thing about them I find intolerable. I feel like I am not important enough to them for them to pay attention to me in real time.

Our phone conversations have a surreal feel -- like it is a one sided conversation with an old picture. Pictures are supposed to capture a moment in time. People need to be present.

A lot of what is construed to be extraordinary intelligence and even esp is really only paying attention. It is important not to devalue any moment.